Three former Cal football players were among the nominees named Monday to the 2023 College Football Hall of Fame ballot.

Tony Gonzalez, Marshawn Lynch and Ron Rivera were among the 80 players and nine coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision and 96 players and 33 coaches from the divisional ranks in a release from the National Football Foundation.

Criteria for nomination includes: a player must have received first-team All-America recognition by a selector recognized by the NCAA and be 10 full seasons removed from his final year.

"It's an enormous honor to just be on the College Football Hall of Fame ballot considering more than 5.54 million people have played college football and only 1,056 players have been inducted," NFF President/CEO Steve Hatchell said in a release. "The Hall's requirement of being a first-team All-American creates a much smaller pool of about 1,500 individuals who are even eligible. Being in today's elite group means an individual is truly among the greatest to have ever played the game, and we look forward to announcing the 2023 College Football Hall of Fame Class early next year."

Gonzalez starred at tight end for Cal from 1994-96, collecting consensus first-team All-American and first-team All-Pac-10 honors in 1996. That season, he had a career-high 46 catches for 699 yards and five touchdowns. Gonzalez also shares the school’s single-game bowl record for most receptions with nine in the 1996 Aloha Bowl against Navy.

Lynch was a star running back from 2004-06 who was named a first-team All-American, Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year and first-team all-conference in his final season as a junior. He rushed for 1,356 yards and led Cal to a share of the Pac-10 title that season.

Lynch is the school’s all-time leader with 17 games of at least 100 yards rushing, ranks second with 3,230 career yards rushing, sits in third with 29 career rushing touchdowns and is fourth with 4,574 all-purpose yards. He also owns Cal’s single-game bowl records with 194 yards rushing and three rushing touchdowns in the 2005 Las Vegas Bowl, earning the game’s co-MVP honors.

Rivera, a Cal linebacker from 1980-83, was a consensus first-team All-American, Lombardi Award finalist, East-West Shrine Game MVP and Pac-10 co-Defensive Player of the Year as a senior in 1983.

He led the Golden Bears in tackles in each of his final three years and finished with the school’s all-time record with 336 tackles, which currently ranks sixth on the career list.

All three are members of the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame. The trio will be looking to join 22 Cal Bears already enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame, with the latest being Steve Bartkowski’s induction as part of the Class of 2012.

The 2023 College Football Hall of Fame class will be voted on by more than 12,000 NFF members and current Hall of Famers by June 30 and will be announced in early 2023. The class will be officially inducted during the 65th NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 5, 2023.

The nominees were submitted by current athletic directors, head coaches and sports information directors of the potential candidates’ collegiate institution, as well as the president/executive director of a dues-paying chapter of the NFF.